


for you (i've waited all these years)

by winterslow



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-07
Updated: 2016-07-11
Packaged: 2018-06-04 06:38:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6645457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterslow/pseuds/winterslow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>the world is ending and steve still needs to find bucky.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been writing this since September but I have to say that Civil War finally gave me the motivation to start posting it. The title comes from Coldplay's Til Kingdom Come. Good luck ♥

*

_Life began in a back alley…_

*

So here’s the thing—

Winter used to mean something different. It was never just scarves and boots, the cold tugging on his sleeves and _Come on Stevie, it’s not worth it, let’s just stay in. Let’s just stay…_

It was white hot fear in the white cold, blankets upon blankets and _his_ blanket, and then _him_. It was every breath, every inch of life measured down to the sound of each lingering cough. Snowflakes and stars, _winter, winter, winter_. It was wishing for it all to go away, to fall down right there and let spring rush over them. It was never just scarves and boots, it was _survival_.

Steve doesn’t think he knows what survival means anymore.

The falling snow still drags in old fears, and it’s been decades but he’s still _here_. He’s here and he’s here, and he’s here. He doesn’t know how to be somewhere else. And maybe it would be easier if he did, if he could just let it all go, move on, finally figure out who he is. To see beyond the shield, beyond the sickly boy with a pencil in his hand, carefully drawing Bucky's profile on the corner of his sketchbook. It’s winter and Steve doesn’t know how to stop missing him.

It’s winter and he’s in a warm conference room with light angling in like water, pouring over the six of them in shifts of gold. The afternoon is winding down, and stray flakes of snow keep drifting past the window that Steve can't quite tear his gaze away from. 

And you know, he didn’t think it could get any more complicated.

Words wash over him, Tony keeps repeating  _a series of asteroids_ and _inhabitable_  and Steve feels a sense of loss, heavy and hesitant. He keeps his eyes on the window, keeps check on the way his heart is beating: a heavy, regular thrumming in his chest that reminds him he’s still here, in this body, and that all of this is real.

Steve doesn't want this to be real.

Tony’s still talking though, his hands move over blueprints that Banner helps him arrange in front of them. They’re talking over each other and patiently waiting each other out, both of them saying words that Steve doesn’t want to understand. His whole mind feels like it’s on fire, or frozen out with the snow.

“So what you’re really saying,” Natasha summarizes, because for once she isn’t aware of the plan. When Steve looks over at her he can see the annoyance in her brow, just the slightest quirk. “Is that we can’t stay on Earth.”

“Got it in one,” Tony answers.

And there’s a long beat of silence. Steve just lets it wash over him. He turns his eyes back to the window, always on the window, and imagines the snow falling over him…the ice. How could this happen?

He can hear Sam exhale, the sound long and drawn out. “Excuse me if I’m not following as quickly as I should, but what the hell?”

“It’s simple,” Tony continues. “These asteroids are heading straight towards us, there’s no denying that. Now, we can’t physically move Earth out of the way, or we’d have a much bigger problem on our hands. The best option would be destroying them before they even reach us, but their trajectories and distance from Earth are not in our favor.”

Tony clears his throat.

“We could send space probes _to_ them, but even then we would not have enough power to change their trajectory to avoid hitting us. Above that, there’s too many coming, and there’s no way we could build enough probes with enough accuracy to hit these objects moving thousands of miles a second. If we wait to hit them once they’re close enough to Earth’s atmosphere, the chemical effects remain the same. So, we leave.”

“Right…simple,” Sam says, disbelief written all over him.

Natasha lets out something like an aborted laugh, but Steve can see the distress in her eyes, flashing briefly at Clint every odd second or so. Communication in waves of silence.

“So how are we supposed to survive in outer space?” Clint asks. “Like Star Trek?”

Tony smiles like it’s easy, like the world isn’t ending. “Better than Star Trek. Listen, Bruce and I have been designing several space ships that will follow the same orbit as Earth. Off the top of my head? Easily the most genius thing either of us has done. We’ve really put everything into this, figuring this out the best that we could in the time frame that we’ve had. Backup fuel reserves will be on Mars, they should arrive in around three months and begin fuel production immediately. If you think about it, it’s actually pretty exciting.”

Steve chokes out a laugh. “If by _exciting_ you mean living safely in space while the rest of the population dies down here on Earth. How many people can live on this station, Stark?” Steve is only half aware that he’s said anything, more aware of the way everyone turns their attention to them. Natasha and Sam with thinly veiled worry, Tony with a wince.

“You know, Cap, I think I’d actually be disappointed if you didn’t have that reaction,” he answers. “Don’t _worry_ , I’m taking care of it. As if I don’t devote enough time to saving the world as it is. Here’s the deal: no, we won’t be able to take everyone off planet, that would be...impossible. However, we'll have room for millions and millions of people.”

“As for everyone else,” Banner continues, “we can’t predict exactly what these asteroids are going to do. We have a good idea of the physical impact, we can plot their trajectories and determine where they will fall. Problem is, the biggest threat is what happens _after_ they hit. It’s most likely that the damage that comes with them will create a cloud covering big enough to block out the sun, effectively sending Earth into a small ice-age for the next five or so years.”

_The ice….the cold hiding deep in his bones. He’s alone, cold water, cold space—everything closing in on him._

“Which is why we’ve been preparing shelters all over the southern hemisphere, far from the point of impact. We’ve done our best with technology to support life and produce heat during that time, but there’s no guarantee. That goes for any of us. Space…shelter…we’re all facing something very dangerous here.”

“Why are you telling us now? What’s the plan from here on?” Natasha asks, and she looks very serious. “How long until Earth can no longer support life?”

“The plan,” Tony says, “is to get the most amount of people as safe as possible. Those coming with us are being told as we speak, global evacuation plans will be announced this evening. As for our timeline? We have a week until we leave the planet and a week until the shelters _must_ close and begin precautions against chemical damage. The asteroids hit us in twelve days.”

A pause. Then more silence. The subtle inhale exhale of the room, each person quietly breathing and digesting the information.

Finally, Natasha breaks the quiet. “You know I don’t like being left out of the loop, Stark.”

“That’s the point. Now, I know it’s a lot, but it’s probably in your best interest to pack up now, figure out what you need. Call Pepper if you want anything on this planet—you might not see it for a while.”

“This is crazy,” Sam says, and he looks at Steve briefly before turning to Stark. “You’re crazy, you know that?”

Tony laughs for a moment. “Not the first time it’s been said, buddy, but thanks. I’m looking forward to spending the next few years in space with you people.”

The words sink all the way down to Steve’s stomach—the room goes white, the snowflakes pause beyond the window. He feels cold all over, like the ice is swallowing him up all over again, the word _years_ ringing in his ear again and again, like an echo taking up every inch of his mind.

Very suddenly it feels like he can’t breathe, the air stutters in his throat. It reminds him of long nights in a dark Brooklyn apartment, hands smoothing over his back because they couldn’t afford anything, and he’s thinking of warm hands across his back, hushed whispers in the dark. He’s thinking of the way the moonlight touched Bucky’s skin, the way it made him look like a ghost—his worried eyes always seeking Steve's. He can’t do it, he can’t.

“I can’t go.” The words fall from his mouth with little grace, it’s forceful and Steve feels it with every inch of his body. Tailspin. He’s out of control in his own head, he can feel the desire to lock his gaze on anything, anything, anything.

The window, the window, the snow. The city lights coming alive behind the glass.

“If this is some kind of save the world garbage I will personally force you onto my spaceship. This isn’t optional.”

“Tony, I can’t. Bucky, he’s—I can’t leave here knowing that Bucky’s still out there.”

“Steve—,” Natasha says, but she doesn’t offer anything else, just lets out a breath and looks down at the table. There’s quiet again and Steve feels so _heavy_. He doesn’t know what to do with it, doesn’t know where to put his hands or how to take in enough air. There isn’t a hand across his back, there hasn’t been for some time.

Sam looks up at him, his dark eyes are sympathetic and sad and Steve doesn’t know what to do with that either, doesn’t know if he can do anything. But Sam smiles, says, “You know I’ll help you any way I can.”

Steve knows. He _knows_ , that’s the problem.

Because they looked for him, of course they did. They spent months trying to find him until the only thing left was the inevitability that Bucky would never be found unless he wanted to be, he was always just out of reach. If only Steve could've caught him—

Tony clears his throat. “Yeah, of course. I mean, I personally would _love_ to track down a deadly ex-assassin who may or may not _still_ be an assassin, and invite him into an enclosed space with me for however many years we have to stay up there—”

“Even without his memory, there’s not enough time to find him, Steve,” Natasha reasons after rolling her eyes at Stark. She looks at him softly, blinking like this doesn’t mean everything to Steve—like this isn’t a dangerous thought to follow.

 _There’s not enough time to find him_. It’s not the first time he’s been told Bucky’s a lost cause—it’s not the first time he would risk everything to find him.

He just, you know, _needs to find him_.

“There might not be enough time,” Steve says, gathering himself into himself, “but I don’t think I could live with myself knowing I didn’t try.” 

The silence comes again with thought, images rushing through his head that drag Steve’s gaze back to the window. He imagines Bucky out there, alone in the cold, the world crashing down around him. A blaze of fire and smoke, winter settling permanently beneath heavy clouds. Bucky, alone, and he doesn’t understand that the world is ending.

Bucky, alone, the world ending.

Steve, alone, surrounded by stars.

The universe doesn’t seem to understand that they’re not supposed to be apart.  

“Okay,” Tony says after a while. “That’s fine, we’ll figure something out. Just—don’t do anything crazy in the meantime. Trust me, I know all the stories.”

Steve can feel the edge of a smile on his lips, and it’s there, he can feel it. But there’s the emptiness of the world, the winding down, _Bucky_ and everything that’s happened between them, all that’s missing. There’s spaces between memories but he’s still out there. _They’re both still here_. He can't let that change.

The edges of his smile disappear when Natasha catches his eye. She nods at him once, chin tilted down, her eyes moving along the table before she looks back up at him. Amidst the soft conversation that picked up between Bruce and Tony, she mouths, “I’ll find him,” before she stands up to leave.

Everyone seems to be startled by her sudden exit, but Steve just keeps his eyes on her retreating figure, daring to let himself hope.

“Well if that’s not our cue to conclude this meeting,” Tony says, leaning back in his chair. Everyone’s slow to clear out, but they do. Sam leaves with a long, sad look at Steve—his brows are drawn together, his eyes move all over Steve’s face and Steve hates how much it feels like goodbye.

He opens his mouth to say something—anything, but Tony comes over with the corners of his lips turned down, his glasses obscuring his eyes just enough to hide himself away from Steve.

“Hey Cap,” he says, “I know I said don’t do anything crazy, but I think I know you well enough by now that you don’t listen to the voice of reason and will end up doing whatever the hell you want, anyway.”

“Tony—“

“It’s fine, I get it. I don’t know what you’re planning, but whatever it is, you need to be back here by next Friday. I don’t want to leave without you, but I literally can’t wait any longer than that, I can’t risk people’s lives for Barnes. I won’t.”

Steve is slow to nod. “Yeah, of course, that makes sense. I’ll be back.”

“Good. And by the way, evacuations begin in a few days. Wherever you go, it’s about to get real quiet on planet Earth.”

“Noted.”

“And Steve?”

“Yes?”

“If you need anything at all…” he trails off, and Steve watches him closely, the way his eyes flick up to Steve and then away again. There’s tension between his brows, sunlight washing over him in a way that makes him look like he’s on fire, he’s burning up, and Steve doesn’t think he’s ever seen Tony like this before.

But he can’t seem to connect the lines to make the bigger picture.

“Hey,” Steve says, moving his hand into the light, settling it on Tony’s shoulder, “I’ll do everything I can to find him and make it back in time, but even if I don’t…”

“Don’t say that—“

“Even if I don’t,” Steve says despite the ache in his chest, “it’s okay. It’ll never be your fault. To be honest, I don’t really know where I’d be without you.”

And Tony’s faraway look breaks like sunshine through the trees, he’s shaking his head, light like water, and he smiles. “It’s a little late to be falling in love with me, Cap.”

Steve laughs, and it’s a soft sound. “It’s a little late for a lot of things, Stark.”

*

All Steve knows are endings and beginnings.

This feels a lot like an ending.

*

Here’s the deal:

You’re walking home and gold light falls over you. You’re walking home and gold light touches everything around you: brick on brick, the stop sign at the corner, the large industrial windows skewing New York’s reflection. All of it casts lines of light and strikes the streets like matches.

You’re walking home, only it’s not home anymore. You’re not supposed to be alone, you never were—not in this town. Brooklyn was always meant for the two of you, with your shoulders bumping against each other as you walked the well-worn, familiar streets; hushed laughter between you and the sun always melting in the sky, always falling down over you.

The whole world fell over you, and you survived. You can’t help but plead that you’ll survive this too.

Because Bucky was gone and he came back again. He can come back again.

 _Again and again and again_.

Light falls over you, the buildings fall down around you. New York never meant for you to be alone.

*

The curtains block the streetlights, leaving the room black when Steve is stirred by the sound of someone at the end of his bed. It’s funny that even after all these years he’s still surprised by the way his eyes adjust to the dark. Silent shadows move and set his steady heart racing, and it’s not until his gaze lands on Natasha reaching into the closet across the room that everything slows to a stop.

“You left,” he says, sitting up. “Earlier. Where did you go?”

“Out,” she says, like it’s obvious. And it is. He sits up a bit straighter, blinking into the dark lifting like smoke, and watches her quietly move between his closet and a suitcase open on the floor. It takes him a solid ten seconds before he’s up and out of the bed.

“Where did you go earlier?” he asks again.

She still doesn’t pause. “Doesn’t matter, I called in a few favors.”

“Natasha—“

And at least she looks up, fixing him with a stare that says more than she normally would allow. Her hands are tight around a pair of jeans, and she drops them into the suitcase before she says, “If you’re going to have any chance of finding Barnes in time you need to leave tonight.”

His gaze drops down to the suitcase before glancing up at the sight of her back, reaching into his closet again. “You found him?” he asks.

“Possibly. There’s a chance he’s in Sweden.”

“Sweden?” he repeats, trying to picture Bucky in what his mind imagines Sweden to be like. The image falls over him with a slight smile, Bucky as he was back in Brooklyn, his frustrated hands running through his hair because the snow always ruined it, Bucky in his worn woolen fisherman’s coat that he bought at the thrift store for a dollar. It was ugly and itchy and the elbows were worn down, but Steve remembers the nights that Bucky would drape it over his shoulders when he thought Steve was asleep.

He wishes he could have a few of those nights back. Sickly thin body and all.

He imagines Bucky as he is now, snow sticking to his long hair, the wind pushing it into his face because Bucky’s never willingly worn a hat in his life. He imagines the cold sheen of his arm, red on silver on white. The image falls over him and falls over him again until he forces himself to look at Natasha, where she’s zipping up the suitcase with a knee on top to close everything in.

She doesn’t elaborate but it doesn’t matter. He asks, “What did you pack me, anyway?”

“It’s going to be cold, Steve.” And she hauls the suitcase up by the handle, holding it out for him to take.

 _You’ve been cold before_.

They leave the lights off. The apartment sits in silence as he follows her to the door, tucking his arms into his coat on the way out. He grabs his shield just in case. Outside the sounds of the city are cottony and far away, and still he follows Natasha to a car running against the curb.

“Karlstad, Sweden,” she says, opening the trunk for him. “There’s been a series of Hydra bases completely leveled along Eastern Europe. I have reason to believe he’s headed for Karlstad next.”

“You're sure?”

She nods, closing the trunk and moving around the driver’s side. Steve slides into the passenger seat, it’s warm inside but he rubs his hands together anyways, pushing them in front of the heating vent—a force of habit from bad circulation. He glances over at Natasha, who has her eyes closed for just a second before she pulls her seat belt on and pulls into the street.

The lights of the city fall over both of them.

“Listen, Steve,” she says, and Steve can’t look away from her hands on the wheel. The streets pass in a haze of speed and an echo of _empty, empty, empty_. Streetlights stretch over them in waves. “A lot of things have changed now that this is all happening. I’m only doing this because I know how much he means to you.”

Steve doesn’t think he really understands. He nods anyway.

She continues, “I found someone who will fly you to Sweden tonight. With the change in time zones, you have to leave this Thursday by noon. With or without Bucky.”

“Natasha—”

“After that point there will be no way for you to get back to New York and for the pilot to make it to shelter in time. I know you need to see him again, but it’s possible that he won’t be there at all. You can’t just stay, Steve.”

He lets out a shaky breath, turning to the window. He’s trying not to think of orbiting the sun while the Earth trails behind, the words _you can’t just stay_ , Bucky alone in the snow when the asteroids hit.

 _You can’t just stay_.

Steve turns his head to Natasha, the image of them in a borrowed truck on their way to New Jersey is stuck somewhere in the back of his mind. This time her brows are pulled down just slightly, her lips press together and part, together again and then apart. It hits him in a way he didn’t expect: the sadness written in the shadows and lines of her face.

 _You can’t just stay_.

“Natasha,” he tries, his voice is quiet and it’s all quiet. The streets are quiet, the slowly spinning Earth is quiet, all this—for just these last few moments. “Natasha, I can promise you I’ll come home now, but I can’t know how I’ll feel when that time comes. If I don’t find him, I don’t know if I can just leave.”

“You do know,” she says. “You’ve always known. What would’ve happened on that helicarrier, Steve? What if he hadn’t remembered you? What if you hadn’t fallen into the Potomac? Don’t tell me you wouldn’t die for him.”

He thinks of that Hydra plane headed straight for the ice.

 _You already have_.

And it’s true. Steve bites his lip, because it’s true but it’s not like that. “Believe it or not there’s a difference between dying for someone and actively trying to die. This isn’t a death wish, Nat.”

“But you would.”

He has to snort out a laugh, because hasn’t it always been obvious? “I’d do anything for him.”

The car slows to a stop, and Natasha looks over at him. Her eyes are cold and his stomach sinks into itself. They’re closer to the airport now, and he knows he has every intention of coming back. He feels a little hollow as he searches her face, because it was never meant to end like this.

“Best case scenario?” he continues, “I find him as soon as possible and bring him with me back to New York in time. That’s all I want, Natasha.”

“What if he doesn’t remember you?”

The car picks up again, rolling through the empty intersection. Green light hovers over him, fading into shades of gray like dust. Steve shakes his head. “I can’t—I have to think that he does.”

He imagines them together like they were back in Brooklyn. All these years in between, him and Bucky, the way it was always supposed to be…him and Bucky, the years of separation between them.

“Please don’t stay,” she says, but her eyes are unblinking and she’s staring straight ahead at the road. There’s no emotion in her voice, nothing for Steve to grasp other than the words hanging quietly between them.

“You know,” he starts, pausing when the lights of the airport come into view. All reds, blues, and greens scattered like stars across the night sky tarmac. There’s a feeling in his stomach that he doesn’t know what to call but he’s praying it’s hope. “This isn’t goodbye. But if it was, I would tell you I’m very thankful for everything you’ve done for me, all that you’re still doing for me. You deserve a lot more credit than you get, Nat.”

“If this was goodbye I’d tell you that you’re an idiot,” she says, but then her lips press together tightly and she’s looking away. Steve’s improved hearing allows him to catch the sound of her breath hitching. It’s slight, but there’s this heavy feeling in his stomach that comes with it. His eyes stay on her hair, loose red curls starting to frizz at the ends.

And he thinks, right here, that he’ll never understand the love between them—the coldness and the warmth of it. It’s gentle and heavy, fierce, protective, and it’s unlike anything Steve’s ever known.

“Get out of the car,” she says, and Steve doesn’t want to. His breath stutters in his chest, and he can’t help but think _what if this is it?_  He swallows the thought down, reminding himself that it doesn’t have to be. With another glance at her, he steels himself and opens the car door, letting the night air wash over him—winter in shades of white light coming from within the airport, making him squint in its shadow.  

The sound of the car door opening and closing drags his eyes up to where she joins him, standing close, closer, and then her arms are around his neck. He bends down to make it easier, but it’s not easy to do, to feel this much and only allow his arms wrapped tightly around her to say what he needs to.

 _You can’t just stay_.

He hopes that the kiss he leaves on her forehead says _I won’t._

*

Imagine this:

The ground falls away from you, there’s gold light on the horizon. The minutes turn to hours and your tired eyes stay on the ocean below, just glimpses between the clouds.

Your eyes stay on the ocean and it melts into ice, the ground falls away from you and it falls into ice. _This is the place,_ you think haphazardly to yourself as you watch the mountains between the clouds, the ice falling into the ocean.

You remember falling into the ocean.

Imagine this:

Your eyes close soon after the sun moves over you. Clear horizon, clear head, and you dream of a world falling away from you. You dream of the stars falling towards you and the sun the brightest it’s ever been. You dream of Earth trailing behind you, crescent Earth, and it’s different because you’re not there, you left it all behind.

You watch the stars spin and spin and spin, and you watch the Earth you left behind.

You dream of ice, you dream of your arms letting go, water rising around you. You’re sinking, you’re sinking and you’re sinking. You’ve been sinking for a long time now.

The ice rises up, you dream of rising when you should be sinking. You dream of a hand, outstretched, and the warmth of a Saturday morning spent on the fire escape, clumsy pencil lines all over the paper.

There’s a face you know like your own irregular heartbeat.

The stars, the ice, the morning light on the brick. Shifting shadow over shadow.

The stars, the ice, the morning light on the brick. Bucky filling every space in between.

Imagine this:

The world falls apart to bring you together.


	2. II.

One would think that the serum would fix the groggy, end-of-the-world feeling that comes after sleeping on a plane, but Steve still finds his neck cramping and his chest heavy when he wakes up. The plane is sinking lower into the clouds, and he pulls his seat belt across his lap, glancing out the window at the snow-choked landscape growing closer and closer.

There’s a feeling swims somewhere in his chest: the desperate hope that Bucky is down there. Steve closes his eyes, imagining a world in which none of this happened and maybe he’s just on his way to see him, and—what? What happens then?

He looks over at the pad of paper on the seat next to him when the plane begins to land, he’d meant to write down a plan—any plan—a way to look for Bucky.

Turns out he just doesn’t know.

He lets the thought go for now, waiting for motion to sweep through his stomach as they land. Steve thanks the pilot before he exits the plane, who promptly reminds him that they’re leaving on Thursday. Somewhere beneath the surface there’s a _that’s_ _whether you’re here or not_ and Steve nods, hoping for the former, hoping that there’s two of them to take home.

He takes a taxi from the airport, watching the empty roads whirring past him in a blur of white and blue. Winter falls from the snow-lined trees, and the sky is dark and overcast. It looks fragile, like ice, like the cold, like desolation and the world coming to a quiet end.

Steve pulls his jacket closer to his chest. He’s cold, he realizes faintly, and maybe he’s forgotten what it’s like to genuinely feel that, but he thinks about the suitcase in the trunk, he thinks about Natasha in his room, and he closes his eyes.

These past few years have been so hard, so much harder than anything he faced in the first part of his life. And it’s so strange to divide _then_ and _now_ , when it feels like he’s been alive this whole time, when it feels like the stop gap in between the decades didn’t really happen for him. There’s just this blurry line between when he crashed into the ice and when he woke up in a fake hospital room—in a false reality.

Is it better? Steve doesn’t know. He didn’t think so at first, waking up in a world so far removed from who he was, further away from Bucky than he ever had been in his life—first life and death, and then time.

But he has to remind himself that that’s not the case at all. They’re both here, both alive, and Steve intends to keep it that way.

It’s only a few short minutes until the blurred line of trees rushes into sharp lines of the city, making him miss drawing in a subtle way. There’s not many cars on the road, but there’s people around and it settles something that Steve didn’t realize was bothering him: the emptiness of the past twenty four hours.

It’s a lot.

The taxi driver doesn’t speak English very well, but he understands Steve’s gratitude when they arrive at the address of the bed and breakfast that Natasha gave him.

“You must be Steven,” the woman at the door greets. She has a thick accent and even thicker glasses. Her big eyes move up and down Steve’s body before she opens the pale green door wide enough for him to enter the house. “I’m Adela.”

He follows her to the kitchen, watching her dark grey hair brush against the very top of her shoulders, he tries not to think _you’re younger than me. I’m not supposed to be here._

It helps, you know, knowing that he’s not the only one.

She sits down at the kitchen table, nodding to a seat across from hers. He doesn’t say anything while she quietly scrutinizes him. A long moment passes in which he keeps his eyes on the white refrigerator across the room. Multicolored magnets dot the front of it, places and words he doesn’t recognize.

“The world’s ending, you know,” she says, and it takes Steve a moment to turn his gaze towards her. He takes in the lines around her downturned mouth, the way her eyes are sharp on his and her hands are clasped tightly on top of the table.

“Yeah,” Steve answers quietly with a nod, tilting his head towards her. “I know.”

Another moment, another glance at the tiled floors, at the dishes left on the counter.

“How long are you planning on staying?” she asks.

“Until Thursday.”

Adela narrows her eyes at him, and it’s comical in a way that it isn’t, not really. She narrows her eyes at him and he feels very conspicuous. She narrows her eyes at him and she doesn’t look away.

“I’m leaving on Tuesday,” she says. “For good. The whole town’s leaving, and yet you’re staying…”

The implication of her question hangs heavily in the air while Steve tries to think of a way to answer that. _Looking for my best friend who’s been brainwashed by Hydra for the past seventy years_ somehow doesn’t seem to explain it, and Steve doesn’t really understand why.

“I’m uh, looking for someone,” he replies anyway, feeling his smile wobble at the corners. “I don’t really want the world to end without seeing him again.”

 _Too much_.

“Will you be alright? In this town, alone?”

He considers it—the whole town empty except for him. There’s a wave of loneliness simmering somewhere underneath the thought so he pushes it aside.

“I think so,” he says eventually.

“Well, Steven,” she says, getting up from the table. He watches her retreat down a hall and towards a desk covered in papers and keys and it looks like panic in a way that’s controlled. It’s unsettling. “You’re my last customer, so you don’t have to worry about paying me. There’s not much of point now, is there?”

He hates the bitterness in her voice, hates that it feels like she’s saying _there’s no hope for me, so there can’t be any for you_. He hates that the world has to end when he’s not ready for it, when he doesn’t know if he’ll find Bucky or if he’ll make it back in time.

And his chest feels tight, but he gazes into the cold light reflecting off of Adela’s glasses and says, “Well we’re still alive right now, aren’t we?”

He’s fighting for hope, he can feel it. He’s been fighting for a long time. Steve imagines a world in which Bucky is just waiting around the corner, the white blue architecture and the cold blue sky, and Bucky’s there and they go home together. Brooklyn finds them and sends them into outer space. Together, surrounded by stars.

Steve imagines the sound of Bucky’s voice, something like static over the sound of waves crashing on the shore, something like the faded lights of a city. A sea of stars blinking on and off.

The feeling surrounds him. Familiarity—moonlight licking his skin, making him silver, the two of them keeping watch on the hill with guns clutched to their chests. Bucky had been sitting close enough to feel the heat of him, shoulder to shoulder as he held Steve’s wrist in his hand. He held him like he was still composed of delicate bones, pointing Steve’s hand somewhere distantly in the sky.

 _Look, there’s Perseus, Stevie,_ his breath turning to ice between them, _you’d never see him back home_.

And Steve loves that—that for them home was always the same place.

He smiles faintly to himself, looking up as Adela agrees with a sigh.

“Yes, we’re still alive. For now,” she adds, shaking her head.

*

The bedroom is washed in gray light when Steve enters. There’s a large window across from the door, and Steve glances at the view of the city through the frost creeping around the edges of the glass. The whole room is quaint, from the floral patterned quilt to the cream bead board along the walls. There’s a desk in the corner, a standing mirror, and Steve finds it all very comforting in a way he hadn’t expected. 

He finds himself closing his eyes, breathing in the slightly dusty air and for a second just allowing himself this moment of familiarity. It’s the end of the world, and even if he makes it out alive he still won’t have something like this for a long time.

There’s the sound of Adela on the phone downstairs, her idle movements creaking the floorboards below him. Outside traffic passes quietly, winter biting at the window across from him.

He takes it in until he can’t take it anymore. He lifts his suitcase onto his bed and pulls out multiple sweaters that he’s certain he’s never seen before. Smiling at the thought of Natasha picking them out especially for him, he admires each one and their neutral colors, _soft beige, light gray_ , they’re all big and chunky and soft. Steve keeps one in his hand as he reaches for his phone.

“Steve,” Natasha answers after two short rings.

There’s something like relief in her voice, and Steve moves towards the window, pulling the curtains across the window like film blocking out the light. “Natasha.”

He listens to the way sound shifts around her, there’s a voice in the background that might be Clint but it’s hard to tell. “You must’ve just landed. If you’ve already found him I’m taking all the credit.”

“No,” he says with a smile, and then it turns into a laugh that sounds vaguely empty. He glances at the empty pad of paper he had with him on the plane. “Natasha, what am I doing?”

The feeling rushes over him, pulls at his chest or pushes his chest, and either way Steve’s chest feels strange and unlike anything he’s felt before. Call it survival, call it instinct, call it he needs Bucky to be alive but he doesn’t know how to find him. He never did. Back alleys sang out to Bucky but war drowned Steve’s voice.

“Nat, I couldn’t—I can’t come up with a plan. I don’t know what to do, what if I don’t find him?”

“Calm down,” she says to him, her voice softer and the background noises sound further away. “Just breathe, okay? You’ll find him and you’ll make it back. There’s no other option, here.”

And Steve sucks in a deep breath that doesn’t make it all the way down but it feels good. He pushes aside the curtains, pressing a hand to the frosted glass that makes his heart hurt in such a familiar way.

“Okay,” he says, even though he doesn’t feel very okay. “Okay, I’m just—for some reason I thought it’d be obvious, that I would, I don’t know, _feel_ that he’s here. That’s stupid. This is stupid, Natasha. Why does the world have to end?”

“Because it does.”

“Insightful.”

She breathes out a laugh. “Listen to me, Steve. He’s out there right now, the Hydra base is still intact. I’ll send you the coordinates and alert you when there’s any activity that might be from him. I know it’s not a lot, but it’s the best I can do. Just hope that he goes after it before Thursday and that you can make it there in time.”

“That’s—thank you, Nat, that’s more than I could ask for. And I’m sorry, I never seem to think clearly when it comes to Bucky.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she says, “just be careful, okay?”

“I will,” he says, and he lifts his gaze to the blurry horizon, beyond the low standing buildings and streetlamps. The phone beeps a few times in his ear and he breathes out slowly, tossing it back onto the bed. Steve takes a second to think before he lays down beside it, staring up at the ceiling. His eyes trace along the textured lines like the bottom of the ocean, pausing at every scuff or stain with a small frown. It’s not so different from what he remembers, back in Brooklyn.

Those fevered days spent staring at the ceiling while Bucky was down at the docks. His hands always itched for a pencil and his sketchbook but he remembers the way his body would ache and the way that cold, damp sweat would cover his back and shoulders.

He remembers the exact sound of the lock catching, Bucky quietly humming to himself just in case Steve was napping. There were the sounds of the kitchen that carried into the bedroom, something Steve took for granted until those lonely months when Bucky was away for basic.

He’d come into the room eventually, though, with a whispered “Stevie?” and he’d come sit at the end of Steve’s bed, looking like he’d just stepped out of the pictures even though he’d spent a day doing backbreaking work down at the docks.

They never talked about the way Bucky would take one of Steve’s hands in his, just sitting with him when it was too much to speak or move or think. All of Steve’s thoughts would quiet down to the feeling of Bucky’s hand in his, to the rasp in his chest when he breathed. 

How much easier it would be, if Bucky would just softly knock on his door now, come in with a whispered “Stevie?” and lay beside him.

When Steve thinks about it, that’s all he really wants.

*

It turns out that Karlstad is actually a nice town.

Or at least, Steve thinks it would be without the quiet hum of panic beneath the surface. He finds this out as he takes to the streets, dissatisfied with waiting in his room for a call from Natasha that may or may not come at all.

And he knows its dumb to hope to find Bucky among the scattered people walking with their heads down, their hands shock still to their sides, in a hurry, in a panic, the world falling apart for all of them, but he can’t help it. And, you know, maybe Bucky _does_ know. Maybe Bucky’s fleeing with the rest of them, and even if Steve doesn’t find him, he would still be safe.

He hopes Bucky knows how to be safe.

Steve winds up at a pub some distance from Adela’s home, he wasn’t really aware of how far he was walking, just focused on the thoughts running through his mind. And it’s louder than he thought it would be. There’s a long bar to the right, lit so lowly that most of the people look like silhouettes. It’s reassuring, in a way, to feel the anonymity of the crowd, to walk in with his head down, hidden under the hush of soft conversations and music somewhere in the background.

He takes a seat at the far end of the bar, asking for whatever beer is on tap. The bartender hardly looks at him, but when Steve glances to his right there’s a man staring straight at him, as open and honest as he possibly could be.

 _Well_ , Steve thinks, _so much for anonymity._

It isn’t until he’s got a pint in front of him that the man says, “Steve, right?” He doesn’t wait for a response, instead offering his hand with, “I’m Teddy.”

Steve nods, “Nice to meet you, Teddy. You’re American?”

“Born and raised in Baltimore,” Teddy says. He watches Steve with a slight grin, and he’s not young, there’s grey in his beard and at the roots of his hair, but he looks genuinely happy. One of his hands is clasped loosely around his own pint, his other is resting on the bar. He shakes his head to himself. “Man, I knew something like this was going to happen today. They tell us, you know, that we have to leave, fly to Africa or South America or wherever, and I’m like, man that sucks. But I had a feeling, I really did, that something good was going to happen. And wouldn’t you know? It did.”

“Did it?” Steve asks, barely concealing his confusion. There’s a certain curiosity he has with watching Teddy, reminding him of Tony and all his idiosyncrasies and ticks.

“Of course!” Teddy exclaims, a little too loudly and people are glancing over at them from around the pub. “You’re here. That’s—that’s great.”

And Steve wonders about that. He doesn’t know if it really is, or what it means to someone. But if Teddy thinks…no. “Listen,” he says, “it’s great to meet you Teddy, but I’m not here to help or anything.” His stomach sinks down. “I’m just as helpless as everyone else.”

Teddy watches him for a long moment, an echo of a smile frozen on his face, and he puts down his beer. “You know, sometimes it’s enough. Times like these…someone like you, it’s enough. I know there’s not much anyone can do, but you give me hope. And I have no idea what you’re doing in Karlstad, but I’m glad you’re here.”

This time Steve is shocked into silence, taking too long to process what he’s said. He doesn’t think—that can’t be right. Teddy gets up, though, and claps him on the back. “Thanks, Cap. I really should go home to my wife, though.”

Steve just nods, watching Teddy move towards the door.

Everyone else, it seems, is okay with leaving him alone.

*

This is how it works:

You know what it feels like to be watched. You’re used to it, even. You know the over the shoulder glances, the subtle but at the same time very unsubtle cell phone pictures taken of you when people think you aren’t watching, when they think you don’t know.

And that’s okay. You’re used to it by now (even though some part of you will never, ever be used to it).

But there’s a difference between these innocent, silly glimpses into his life by strangers, and the feeling of _being watched_. The way the air shifts and moves when someone is watching you with intent. The weight of a predatory gaze.

You know it’s ridiculous, you know that it’s absolutely ridiculous, but on the walk home you find yourself desperately hoping to feel that heavy stare that first fell on you when you were nine years old. Because life began in a back alley and—

All you know are endings and beginnings.

You really don’t want this to be an ending.

*

Steve doesn’t even realize he’s left his phone in his room until he gets back. The lights flick on, and he still has to adjust to how bright they are, how they wash out each color and—the lights flick on and there’s black on white, his phone in the middle of his bed, right where he left it.

He doesn’t think anything of it at first, but then he remembers that Natasha is supposed to send him coordinates and an alert when Bucky attacks the Hydra base and very suddenly he can’t breathe, convinced that he’s missed it. His hands are shaking as he reaches for it, his heart nearly stopping when there’s an alert on the home screen.

“Idiot,” he mumbles to himself.

Steve hates the relief he feels when he realizes it’s a voicemail from Sam, but he only takes a second to let that feeling wash over him before he starts to worry for a whole new set of reasons.

_Two new messages_

“Steve—buddy. I talked to Natasha this morning and she explained what happened. Gently, of course, because apparently she thinks I’m crazy enough to follow you. I would’ve though, and you know that. And this isn’t a guilt trip or anything, I promise. I hope you find him, okay? I’m just—I don’t know, Steve. I’ve known you for two years and I’m terrified that I’ll never see you again.

“The thing is, I didn’t know how much I was hurting until you ran by me that morning. You’ve been crucial to my recovery in a way I never even realized I needed, and I know that I’ve tried to help you as much as I could. You’re a hero, Rogers, and an idiot, but you’re still a hero. I guess I just didn’t realize all of it was for —BEEP—

_Next message_

“These are too damn short…Listen Steve, if you need anything, and I mean anything, you know I’m there. Love you, man.”

_To save this message—_

This is the worst part of Steve Rogers: He’s hurting the people he loves. He’s hurting the people he loves and it’s not the first time he’s done it. He’d do anything for Bucky, it’s a love sacrificed for a love that he hasn’t had in over seventy years.

None of it makes sense.

He wants to call Sam back but he doesn’t know what he would say. He doesn’t know if there’s anything left to say. He loves him, he needs him, and he hopes beyond hope that he’ll make it back in time.

This is truly the worst part of Steve Rogers: He sets the phone down with the ringer at full volume, and lies down, choking each emotion into the side of the pillow.

He is, he realizes, alone.

*

_Steve’s sitting with his legs crossed on his bed, the light pencil marks in his sketchbook keep smudging where his hand accidentally brushes over them. With a soft sigh he goes about cleaning up each line, carefully dragging the eraser along the edge, eventually holding out the sketchbook (Bucky bought it for him for his birthday last summer, he said it wasn’t expensive but Steve’s still not sure he believes him) at arm’s length to get a better idea of what his drawing looks like._

_He frowns at it, the familiar feeling of_ not good enough _creeping in until he huffs out a breath and leans back against the wall._

_The pencil is back in his hand by the time he hears the familiar catch of the front door. Steve’s too focused on the empty milk bottle and metal pan that he set up on their bureau to call out to Bucky, but they both know he’s in here anyway so there’s no point._

_He half listens to the sounds of the kitchen, distracted until he hears footsteps pause at their bedroom door._

_“Why the hell is the window open?” Bucky asks, and Steve automatically looks up at the open window, transferring his gaze to Bucky, who’s watching him right back._

_“I was hot?” Steve offers, and it’s true. He_ was _hot, but now that he thinks about it his arms are covered in goosebumps and his forehead isn’t as sweaty as it was an hour ago._

_“You were hot,” Bucky repeats, and Steve already knows what’s coming. “Great, that’s what I’ll tell the nurse when you wind up with pneumonia again. It’s the end of December, it’s like fifteen degrees outside. Come on Stevie, what are you thinking?”_

_Steve rolls his eyes. “I don’t know if you’ve realized this, Buck, but you’re not my mother.”_

_“Right, I’m just the one who will end up fearing for your life when we can’t afford medication again, dummy.”_

_He ignores the stab in his chest, the feeling that something is_ _wrong because Bucky can be a lot of things, but he’s never_ mean _. “Look I’m fine, don’t tell me I’m going to get sick.” And he pauses, pouting a little bit. "Dummy," he adds._

_Bucky finally moves into the room towards the window. “You know,” he says, closing it gently, because that’s how Bucky always is, “for someone who doesn’t want to be treated like a baby, you sure act like one.”_

_And Steve doesn’t really know how to answer that, so he stares at Bucky, who’s got his eyes fixed on the window, one arm against his chest and thumbing idly against the bottom of his cleft chin: a nervous habit. Steve frowns._

_“And why do you have to open the window with your hand directly on the glass, huh? Makes no sense, Rogers, it just leaves a big, smudgy hand print on the glass.”_

_Steve shifts, closing his sketchbook with a soft noise in the anxious quiet between them. “Okay," he says, "did something happen, Buck? Is something wrong?”_

_Bucky finally looks up at him, his big blue eyes withdrawn and there’s the smallest pout on his lips. Steve can’t stop his gaze from moving all over him, his eyes, his lips, the cleft of his chin, the way he holds his arms close to his chest. His stomach bottoms out because he knows Bucky doesn’t care about handprints on the window, he knows that Bucky wouldn’t be taking whatever it is out on him unless he was really bothered by it._

_But Bucky shakes his head. “Yeah I’m fine, I just—I need some air.”_

_He watches him lift the window by the wooden frame, just enough to duck his head under and out onto the fire escape. The pencil still hangs loosely in Steve’s hand and he just…he doesn’t know what just happened but he_ is _cold, so he pulls the blanket that he’s sitting on up and around his shoulders._

_He can wait for Bucky to come back._

_The evening passes slowly, though. Steve sits for a few long minutes before he fishes out his sketchbook from underneath the blanket, staring at his drawing and back up at the still life he set up. With a long, exaggerated sigh he tosses it to the end of his bed, and he lays back, smoothing his cheek along his pillow, fixing his gaze on the window._

_He thinks maybe he’s drifted off, because the next thing he knows he’s blinking blearily, watching movement and tendrils of smoke come from the fire escape._

_With a small breath, Steve gets out of bed and crosses the room, leaning against the wall next to the window so that he can see Bucky full of shadows, looking like something straight out of a song. There’s a cigarette held to his lips and his left hand glows all quiet and soft, like a dream, from the tip of the cigarette. His eyes are dark when he looks up at Steve, but there’s no evident emotion in them, he’s just staring._

_But the moment shifts when Bucky stubs out the cigarette, placing the unsmoked half in his shirt pocket before he stands, drawing closer to the window. He keeps his eyes on Steve the whole time, and it’s like, here’s this dark figure moving towards him, shadows and shadows outlined by the streetlights behind him, and he’s still the best thing Steve’s ever seen._

_He places his hand on the glass, right over where Steve had opened the window earlier. His skin becomes all blurry and he’s looking at Steve with a lopsided smile, a kind of_ are you going to let me in?

_Steve places his hand over Bucky’s. He doesn’t know why he does it, maybe it’s just habit—opening the window like this—but there’s this feeling that falls over him. Just him and Bucky, the cold glass between them, everything that’s happened leading up to this point in their lives. It all sort of rushes through him, this warmth that comes from Bucky caring about his stupid, fragile immune system._

_He keeps his hand there, his eyes moving up to catch Bucky’s on the other side. And like, this is ridiculous, the two of them, but there’s no one in the world that will ever understand him like Bucky does, no one he would rather share this moment with. There’s something so strange about that, that some part of him will always belong to Bucky no matter what happens._

_Finally he pushes the window up, letting Bucky back inside. There’s a split second where he realizes he cannot explain what just happened, but it doesn’t matter. Bucky closes the window behind him, his skin absolutely frozen when he puts his hand on Steve’s elbow, moving around him and towards his bed._

_He kind of collapses onto it, his face shoved into the pillow and Steve half-laughs at that, sitting on his own bed and bringing his thin blanket around his shoulders again, watching Bucky in the darkness, listening to the silence settling between them._

_But, being him, he can’t let it go._

_“Buck?” he prompts._

_“Mmpf,” Bucky mumbles into the pillow, eventually turning his head to look at Steve. His hair’s all mussed up, and he heaves out a loud breath, his left cheek still squished against the pillow. “I’m being dumb.”_

_Steve smiles. “Well that’s a given.”_

_“Ha ha, you’re real funny, punk. No—I’m just, I don’t know…it’s dumb.”_

_“Yeah, you mentioned that,” Steve says, brows coming together in confusion. “Mind telling me what’s so dumb?”_

_“Come here,” Bucky says instead of a real answer, and Steve does. He takes the blanket and he crosses the gap between their beds, sitting cross-legged in the empty space next to Bucky. And okay, he likes being this close to Bucky, likes when he feels like it’s them against the world. They’re in a dark room and Bucky’s looking up at him from the pillow, his eyes lit up from the stray streetlight coming in through the window smudged with two handprints._

_“You’re messing with me, aren’t you?”_

_Bucky shakes his head. “Guess who’s going to basic?”_

_“You?” Steve asks, confused for a moment but then he takes a second to think about it. “Really?”_

_He watches Bucky nod but Bucky won’t look at him, he’s looking at his thumb smooth over the pillowcase in front of him._

_“What’s dumb about that?” Because Bucky must’ve gone and enlisted today, since he was too busy to go with Steve last week (not that Steve had been accepted)._

_“Nothing,” Bucky says, and he presses his lips together. They part. “I was just thinking about all of it. Like what if you get sick while I’m gone? What if I’m not here to help? Or worse, what if—“_

_“Please don’t finish that thought.”_

_He finally looks up at Steve, squinting like he’s looking at the sun, and finally his mouth falls into a pained smile. “Sorry Stevie, I didn’t mean it, I’m just—I don’t know. Something doesn’t feel right about it.”_

_And Steve blinks down at him, leaning forward a little, because what is that supposed to mean? He shifts his weight, tilting his head to look back up at the ceiling, at the shadows shifting across the room from where light moves beyond the window. It’s dark and light at the same time, and Steve doesn’t really understand anything._

_He doesn’t understand what’s causing this look in Bucky’s eye, all this uncertainty in one of the most certain people Steve knows. “Buck, you’ll be fine. You’re doing the right thing, of course you’re doing the right thing,” he assures._

_Bucky watches him for a short moment before he blinks long and slow, a close lipped smile tilting the corners of his mouth. “Have I ever told you that you’re the best person I know?”_

_“Yeah, yeah, you big jerk,” Steve says, rolling his eyes. “I guess you’re pretty great, too.”_

_“Punk,” Bucky retorts, retrieving an arm from under the covers and using it to gently push at Steve’s shoulder. “Come on, this conversation is pointless. We should get some sleep.”_

_Steve hums in agreement, not really moving from where he’s sitting on Bucky’s bed. Bucky watches him lazily, and Steve wishes he could draw him right now._

_It’s like this: Steve thinks he could look at Bucky all the time and never get bored. Each angle of his face is so interesting, so defined and soft and in the low light he looks soft all over. The lines of his brow, down his nose, the planes of his cheeks…_

_He huffs out a breath, shaking his head at Bucky before crossing the gap back to his own bed. He fits his blanket over himself, making sure to tuck it around his feet before snuggling it up around his shoulders, pressing his face into the pillow with a few long, heavy breaths._

_“Hey Buck,” he says, focusing his eyes on Bucky across the gap, and like this he feels so far away even though he could probably reach out and touch him. “You don’t have to worry about me, I’ll join you soon enough.”_

_And he means it, he really does, he knows it in his bones that someday it’ll be him and Bucky on the front lines, defending their country. And what a dream to have…_

_“Goodnight, Stevie,” Bucky says before rolling onto his back, because he’s Bucky and that’s how he’s always slept, ever since they were boys and they used to try and stay awake all night. They’d lie on their backs, next to each other, talking about whatever, and sure enough Bucky’s breathing would slow and even out, his chin tilted slightly towards his right shoulder._

_“Night, Buck.”_

_He says it, but sleep doesn’t come. Steve lies awake thinking about Bucky being away, he thinks about the winter and snow and the way the cold rushed into their room earlier. He imagines light rushing through the room instead, imagines himself as a dream…_

_He lies awake and he lies awake, and he can’t stop thinking, can’t stop looking at the fading handprints on the window. He can’t stop thinking about Bucky, is the thing, because Bucky’s leaving, because Steve believes he’ll join him but doesn’t know how he’ll do it yet._

_It sends his heart beating a little faster, the irregularity of it too familiar._

_“Bucky?” he whispers._

_Bucky hums, his body slow to follow but then he’s turning his head towards Steve. “Yeah?”_

_And he hates that he feels better asking this in the dark. “When are you leaving?”_

_“Monday,” he says, the word sits heavily between them for a while. “But I’ll be back.”_

_“Yeah,” Steve answers like it’s obvious, and it is, but it isn’t at the same time. It’s just weird, because like, Bucky’s all he’s ever really known. Bucky’s really all he has._

_It’s the first time he’s ever doubted the whole thing._

_“Okay,” Steve says, and he thinks about what that means, really. Because he and Bucky spend every day together. They’re best friends. And he’ll be gone…_

_“Um. This is going to sound weird,” he continues, but pauses. Bucky doesn’t say anything. “Could I come sleep next to you?”_

_There’s no answer for a bit, and Steve thinks that maybe Bucky’s gone back to sleep, or maybe he’s just pretending he didn’t hear for Steve’s sake, but then there’s a, “Yeah, come on.” and that’s that._

_Steve takes his blanket, watching Bucky making room for him in the dark. He moves closer to the wall, eyes finding Steve’s like he’s trying to tell him that he feels the same._

_That they’re not really supposed to be apart._

_And maybe he should feel something else in the warmth of Bucky’s bed. He doesn’t know what it would be because the lines have always been blurred, and they’ve always just been exactly who they are to each other. He doesn’t know what else they could be._

_What he does know: Bucky is all he has._

_It’s not a thought he wants to follow, settling in next to him. Their eyes stay together for a long moment before Bucky shakes his head, finally leaning back into the pillow with a deep breath._

_“I’ll miss you,” Steve says in the dark, because the words feel safer here, closer to Bucky._

_“I know,” Bucky answers eventually, the sound of sleep around the edges of his voice. “I know you will. Me too, for what it’s worth.”_

_“You’re going to miss yourself? Good to know…”_

_Bucky turns his head towards him, and in the dark it’s hard to tell but Steve can imagine the way his eyes roll. “Shut up, you know what I mean.”_

_“Yeah, I know” he says, feeling his smile grow. “Hey—did I ever tell you about that dream I had the other night?”_

_“No, punk,” Bucky says. He thinks it’s a little absentminded the way Bucky’s hand reaches over to rest on his stomach. “Tell me about it.”_

_And he does, his hand eventually coming to rest on top of Bucky’s. Sleep soon finds both of them in shades of gray, with slow voices and the sounds of the city muffled beyond their room._

_*_

Steve’s eyes open to find his empty room in shades of gray. He checks his phone on the nightstand next to him but there aren’t any messages. There’s just the quiet of his room, the silhouette of snow falling beyond the curtain. It’s simple, really, the peace in it…the gentleness of the moment.

Call it hope, grounded in his memory. He remembers the way Bucky used to curl around him, cold nights pulled along with soft conversation.

He remembers it all...


	3. III.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a warning for themes of depression in this chapter. I'll put some details/spoilers in the end note.

*

It’s funny, when you’re walking along the sidewalks of Karlstad, there’s evidence of Bucky everywhere.

You see it in the worn footprints in the snow, in the scarf wrapped around your neck because you can still hear his voice saying _please don’t catch a chill, Stevie_ , and you’re not alone because somehow he’s always on your mind, occupying this space that his physical body will never find.

He’s hidden within you and you still love him. You will always love him and it will always be like this: you will wait forever and even when the world ends you will find him there, and you will still love him.

*

The feeling comes when he’s walking home that evening.

It’s a heavy, cloudy night, the sky is almost bright with the weight of it hanging over him, and he’s walking home. The breeze moves over him, and he moves quickly because it’s cold, shoving his hands in his pockets, tucking his face into his scarf.

And he’s walking home in the cold, with his hands in his pockets and his face tucked into his scarf, and he can _feel_ it.

He’s being watched.

With long, forced breaths, Steve keeps his stride as normal as he can, keeps his eyes steadily ahead of him. There’s hope rushing up in his stomach which he tries to stamp down. He doesn’t know if it’s Bucky, doesn’t dare to look in case he’ll scare him off. It could be anyone, when he thinks about it. Word must’ve spread by now that Captain America’s hanging out in Sweden.

He deviates from his normal walk home, turning down an empty street that will hopefully draw out whoever is watching him, following him…

But, you know, he kind of really needs it to be Bucky.

All he feels is sinking, sinking, sinking in his chest, and he doesn’t know how to shake the feeling. He just keeps breathing like nothing is happening, like this is all normal, and the thing is, he’s so _cold_. The scarf isn’t enough, the breeze keeps pushing over his face, touching his skin and taking him apart right there. The dividing line between his insides and his outsides is blurring and shaking and he’s being taken apart right there.

There’s a split second where Steve wishes he had his shield, just in case, but the thought is broken by a sharp movement to his left and then he’s being pushed against a brick wall.

 _Life began in a back alley_.

And it’s him. In the moonlight the curves of his face look soft, but his cheekbones and jawline are sharper than he remembers. His hair’s longer, too, just brushing the tops of his shoulders in a wild sort of manner, wavy and unbrushed, but he looks clean. He looks good.

And his hands are on Steve’s shoulders, holding him at an arm’s length away but not really holding him at all, like he knows Steve won’t try to fight him.

“What are you doing here?” Bucky chokes out, and Steve wonders then, if Bucky remembers anything.

 _To the end of the line_.

All Steve can do is take in a shaky breath, letting his eyes move all over Bucky’s face. Bucky, with his brows pulled together tightly, his lips pressed together, and Steve feels like he’s seen him like this before, in another life time, maybe.

“Bucky,” he says. “You’re here.”

He thinks of Peggy for a moment, because that’s what she sounded like every time she saw Steve for the first time again. And he wonders, then, if it felt like this.

To love someone so much.

Bucky’s hands tighten around the fabric of Steve’s coat, swallowing tightly and shifting his weight, but he never turns his gaze away. His eyes are dark and grey and unwavering. “What are you doing here?” he asks again.

“I was looking for you,” he says, and he knows it’s dumb but he doesn’t know what else to say. The reality of Bucky is more intimidating than he thought it would be. He's been waiting for this moment, been hoping for it ever since he woke in a hospital room with Sam at his side. All those nights chasing him down, his hope sinking deeper and deeper until it couldn't be called hope anymore. So that's the truth, Steve's been looking for him. 

He's been looking for him for a very, very long time.

As it is, Bucky just watches him, no shift in his face or body, and it seems very purposeful until it doesn’t. Until it seems like Bucky’s somewhere far away in his head.

“Buck?” he prompts.

Bucky’s eyes focus back on him and his hands loosen their grip but they stay on Steve, and it’s messed up, it’s so messed up how they're both still here. Steve doesn’t want him to move away, his mind pleads for him to _come closer, please_.

“You can’t be here,” Bucky says, and he looks away for just the slightest second. “You should’ve stayed where you were.”

“Why?”

And Bucky stares at him for a long moment, one in which Steve wonders if this is what communicating with Bucky will be like now. “There’s nothing—I mean…I mean I’m not—,” he struggles, and his mouth parts, his hands press into Steve’s shoulders a little more, like he’s almost leaning on him…

“It’s okay, Buck,” Steve offers. “Whatever it is, it’s okay.”

Bucky shakes his head sharply, almost as if the conversation is causing him physical pain. “I’m fine,” he says, like that’s what Steve asked. “You should go.”

The weight on Steve’s shoulders is instantly gone, and he’s faced now with Bucky backing into the shadows, his eyes still on Steve but it’s not enough anymore.

“Bucky—”

“I just—I gotta keep doing what I’m doing, Stevie. I’m fine—forget about this, okay? Go back to New York, or something.”

And Steve’s world spins with one _Stevie_. Bucky remembers.

“Bucky,” Steve says, suddenly every nerve in his body alive and on fire and he _needs Bucky to stay_. “Bucky, the world’s ending.”

But Bucky lets out a short breath, something like a laugh. “Good.”

Steve doesn’t know what Bucky sees when he looks at him, but something changes his expression. Steve had never imagined it to be like this, but then Bucky steps closer, comes just close enough to reach out and touch him. Steve wants to reach out and touch him.

Bucky opens his mouth, pausing before he asks, “If I come back later, will you still be here?”

And all Steve can do is nod, because he’s sure that if he tries to speak he’ll cry. He knows, is the thing, he knows exactly where Bucky is going. He knows Bucky’s heading after that Hydra Base, he probably thinks he still has time and Steve doesn’t know why he’s not correcting him. He doesn’t know why he can’t just open his mouth and tell Bucky that they should go back to New York _right now_ , because they might not get the chance otherwise.

But something has him frozen in place, watching Bucky go, and it feels like the train all over again.

*

All Steve knows are endings and beginnings.

He thinks he knows now, that this is an ending.

*

You try not to regret what happened. You _try_.

But here’s the thing: it’s Tuesday morning and when you go downstairs Adela’s packing up the last of her things. She doesn’t accept your help, doesn’t say much other than what is necessary.

_Don’t forget to salt the front steps. There’s still the plants in the living room, water them if you can remember. Whatever you do, don’t do any irreparable damage. They said we might be able to come back in five years or so, if the snow and ice are gone…._

You nod, paying close attention to her. You watch the way her hands shake, you watch the way the light pushes in through the curtains and reflects off the face of her watch. You see it all in a way that feels distant, like a dream, and you know that this is it.

Without Bucky, you’ll be facing the entire town alone.

So here’s the thing: it’s Tuesday morning and you let Bucky leave last night. It’s Tuesday morning and you need him to come back before Thursday, but there’s this sick feeling in your stomach that says he’s not coming back at all.

It’s Tuesday morning and you don’t know what to do.

*

Steve finds his sketchbook at the bottom of his suitcase that afternoon. He whispers a quiet _thank you_ to Natasha because he knows he never would’ve packed it on his own.

He finds himself wandering the streets again, watching people pack up into their cars, the traffic leading out of the city. He’s alone on the sidewalks, watching the last of this town say goodbye, leaving him alone with the ice and the snow and the dismal hope that it won’t be much longer now.

The dismal hope that Bucky will come back.

It’s the thought that has him settle onto a bench a little further south than he usually walks. He takes off his gloves. The sun is out and it’s warming his skin as much as it’s weak, winter light can. The pencil still feels the same in his hands, and he finds that it’s easy to start drawing again, tracing the lines of the buildings in front of him until it turns into a brick alley, long hair brushing along a metal shoulder.

Steve stops for a moment, closing his eyes against the sun. Last night feels like a dream...hazy in a way that has him question if it happened at all. Even in dreams Bucky still disappears.

But he can still feel the weight of Bucky’s hands on his shoulders, the only evidence of two boys in a back alley, life threatening to start again.  

He wants to feel alive again.

*

That night Steve packs himself a dinner and eats it on the roof of a building down the street from Adela’s house. He shivers while he watches the empty city around him, at the streetlights that light up empty houses while the rest of the world turns dark.

It’s a strange thing, to watch the world turn dark.

When he’s done eating he leans back, tilting his head towards the sky. He tries to imagine spending the next few years up there, what it would be like, but it’s so hard to do. Despite all the things he’s had to catch up on, all the technology that he’s just had to accept because what else can he do? Yes, despite all that he can’t really picture himself floating into space with all the people he loves.

He thinks it might be because he hasn’t found Bucky yet, he isn’t _safe_ yet, but some part of him wonders if it’s because he doesn’t think it’s going to happen at all.

That’s not a thought he wants to entertain, it’s not a thought he _can_ entertain right now, alone in a city that shouldn’t be empty. Alone in all the ways he doesn’t want to be.

Instead he focuses on the stars, trying to remember the constellations that Bucky used to point out to him all those years ago. It’s not as easy without Bucky’s knowing hands on his wrist, guiding him through the night sky.

And he wonders about Bucky now, if he still tilts his head back at night…

He hopes it holds the same attraction to him as it once did.

The stars continue to slowly shift across the sky, and Steve imagines himself just reaching out and touching them despite the distance. It feels like there’s nothing between him and the stars, he feels the closest he’s ever been to them.

And later, when he lies down in his bed, he imagines him and Bucky and all the stars, together on that rooftop, surrounded by the infinite.

Distance doesn’t mean anything at all.

*

Wednesday is empty.

Steve keeps his phone clutched in his hand, finding his grip less and less steady as the empty hours drag on and there’s still no sign of Bucky.

When the sun dips lower, lining the snow-choked, empty buildings with gold, he walks and walks and walks, determined to occupy his thoughts with something else besides this…heaviness.

It’s all around him, empty, empty, _empty_. The skies: empty. The streets: empty. His body: empty.

He watches the sun set completely, and that’s empty too. Tonight it seems darker, like there’s less streetlamps that come on but he knows it isn’t true. He walks and he walks and he checks his phone, feeling his anxiety in his fingertips, in his restless legs.

And it’s funny, Steve keeps thinking he sees Bucky in the strange shadows behind buildings, or below the streetlamps. He keeps glancing over his shoulder—he doesn’t know what it would take to stop waiting for him. Here he is, shivering in the streets, hoping beyond hope that he won’t be alone for much longer.

So yeah, Wednesday is empty. It’s lonely. Steve walks back to Adela’s house and he can’t stop shivering. He goes through one of her closets upstairs and finds a quilt, it’s pink along the borders and the patches are made of hearts and homes and lighthouses and he holds it for a long time, swallowing down the strange emotion that comes with it.

People lived here, people loved here.

And he’s still shaking, so he takes the quilt with him to bed, smiling to himself when he grabs one of the pink edges and pulls it over his shoulders. Maybe he’s not that different from who he used to be. The circumstances certainly aren’t. Here he is, cold and shivering in bed with the blankets pulled tight around him, waiting for Bucky to come home.

He needs Bucky to come home.

And he doesn’t want to feel like this anymore, but God. He would.

He would wait out the end of the world to see Bucky one more time and that should break his heart.

But it doesn’t.

*

It takes Steve a long time to get up on Thursday morning.

He doesn’t know what to do, glaring at the ceiling. His stomach turns and turns and the room is spinning, the whole world is spinning and he doesn’t know what to _do_.

Because it comes down to this: he could get on a plane and let it be over, survive the end of the world, and spend the rest of his life without Bucky.

Or he could stay.

He thinks of Natasha, he hates himself for thinking of Natasha, but he thinks of the way she said _don’t tell me you wouldn’t die for him._ Because she’s right. She’ll always be right. Thinking of getting on that plane sends the sharpest pain through his chest. Leaving Bucky behind is…unthinkable.

He doesn’t know who he is anymore, who he’s hurting. There’s this blanket of numbness closing in on him, and he feels like any decision he makes would be wrong. But Steve knows, he at least knows that his new family will be safe. He knows he's going to hurt them, but he knows they'll be safe. Bucky is a part of Steve that he’d be leaving behind in the cold. And it’s frustrating, it’s so frustrating, that there isn’t a way he could have both Bucky and the future unless he showed up right now.

How much easier it would be…

The hours are winding down, though. It’s not early but it’s dark, the room spins in waves of grey, and winter used to mean something different. It was never just scarves and boots, the cold tugging on his sleeves and _Come on Stevie, it’s not worth it, let’s just stay in. Let’s just stay…_

And Steve still doesn’t know what survival means, all he knows is that survival doesn’t mean leaving the planet and staying safe. That’s not survival.

In the dim daylight, Steve breaks down.

*

You know there’s not much of a chance, but you go out into the snow anyway.

You walk through the city until time is up, until you know the plane is gone and it’s over. You walk the city and then you find the spaces beyond the city, the wide expanse of white under white.

And it’s hard to breathe, the cold comes in and out with shaky breaths that you can’t fight, and you’re blinking hard but the tears still come until everything blurs around you, the silence falls over you.

 _Again and again and again_.

When you’re on your knees you aren’t thinking about all that you’ve lost, you aren’t thinking of the people you’re letting down, or how you’ve failed in every way you could.

All you think is _why_.

*

“Please,” is the word that gets choked out into the snow.

Steve says it again, unsure of what he’s even asking for at this point. It comes out again and again and his jeans are soaked in the knees, the cold comes back over him like it did so long ago.

And—

All Steve knows are endings and beginnings.

This can’t be it.

*

This is how you define Steven Grant Rogers:

The cold comes over him but he picks himself up anyway. He brushes the snow off his legs, rubs his hands over his face, and turns back towards Karlstad. He isn’t really feeling anything, just breathes and breathes and breathes and he puts one foot in front of the other.

He tries to sort out what this really means, what he could do, how to find Bucky—even though Bucky still hasn’t gone after that Hydra base, so who knows where he is—he considers calling Tony, but he knows it’s too late. The sun’s already close to setting completely, and the streetlights still come on just for him.

Adela’s words come to mind, _will you be alright by yourself?_ And he starts to think no, he’s not alright. But he wonders, too, if he’s really by himself.

It’s the thought that takes him back to his room. The house is dark and he leaves it that way, up the stairs, stripping off his cold, wet jeans and his shirt and falling into bed like he used to when he was young and feverish.

He thinks, then, of Bucky’s worried stare, his hand brushing over the back of Steve’s, all those long, delirious afternoons in which every interaction with Bucky felt like a dream. Every _Stevie_ , all the nights staying up laughing about something, saying every thought aloud just so they could keep talking and not have to go to sleep. He misses him so bad.

He thinks he misses his life as it used to be.

And he wonders if he ever got the chance to really mourn what was lost in the war.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Steve waits for Bucky while the rest of the town leaves, which leads to a lot of questioning/depressive thoughts. The time comes when he has to decide whether or not to leave, and he thinks about Natasha telling him that he would die for Bucky. Steve decides to stay, and he has a small break down outside. 
> 
> Things will get better for these boys :-)


	4. IV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, hi, it's been a little while. Sorry about that!

*

Here’s a story:

Two boys rent a rundown apartment in a rundown part of Brooklyn. They don’t know that time is running down too.

One boy just lost his mother, one boy just wants to help.

Both boys are fascinated by an apartment across the street.

It shouldn’t exist among the crowded, decaying buildings, or among the poor, decaying people who live there, but it does. It exists and it’s beautiful because the curtains are always open and the lights are always on. Its wide windows display white carpet and white walls in a world where white seems impossible. It feels like a dream just to look at it.

What’s strange: it’s always empty.

Always.

At night it’s a beacon. Two boys sit on the fire escape and watch the way that the gold light falls out into the street between them. They laugh, they tell each other their theories on why it’s empty, they work and they hurt and they love and it always comes back to gold light in an empty apartment. The boy who lost his mother doesn’t forget his sadness, but he feels it fall away from him. It’s shoulder to shoulder, and light, light, light. It’s everything to him.

Because here’s the thing: he thought he’d have to be alone.

But the other boy promises he’ll stay with him to the end of the line.

Neither of them knows what it will take to get there.

*

It’s cold when Steve wakes up.

The clock on the nightstand says it’s a little past two in the morning but the room feels bright, or maybe not bright but _different_. He checks the window, it’s not snowing but it feels like it should be. There’s something about the way the clouds are sitting tonight, like a big sheet pulled over the sky, holding back all the light until the morning separates them.

And Steve feels wide awake, keeps feeling something shifting under the surface and he wants to know what it is.

He knows what he _wants_ it to be, but he doesn’t let himself hope.

What he does is put his clothes on, tugging on his heaviest sweater and coat, shoving his feet into his boots by the door. He takes to the streets again, because he can’t help but think _maybe this time_.

The streetlamps make everything blurry tonight: the snow, the empty abandoned cars, the car still running against the curb up ahead—

Steve’s stomach drops into itself.

The hazard lights are on, blinking harsh white light on and off again. On and off. On and off.

He doesn’t realize that’s he’s stopped walking until he knows that he _needs_ to see if…if it’s Bucky. If it’s anyone at all. If it’s not some mirage that his mind has conjured up, or if he’s still in a dream beneath a pink quilt back in Adela’s house.

His legs carry him in a daze towards the car, closer and closer until he’s approaching the driver’s side. He bends down to look inside and—

It’s empty.

But—okay. The car is still running, it’s still warm where his hands are resting on the glass. He swallows down the moment of disappointment to look up, there’s no one on the sidewalk or to either side of him, but when he turns his head there’s a figure on the bench across the street, baseball cap pulled low over his forehead, long hair brushing his shoulders. Even from here Steve can tell his coat is worn and his shoulders are low, but he’s watching Steve like he’s all that matters in the world.

And Steve’s eyes are wet when his hands drop from the car, his legs carry him across the street without a single thought about it. All he knows is that Bucky is staying still but he’s coming closer and closer, it’s in slow motion and the cold surrounds them both. Even when he’s just steps away from Bucky his mind is on the cold, on the way Bucky’s face is full of shadows from the streetlamp above them.

And he’s beautiful, he always has been, but with emotion tugging on his lips and gloved hands curled in his lap, he’s a dream come to life. He is—everything.

“Can I sit?” Steve asks, nodding to the space next to him.

Bucky’s eyes widen a fraction, never really leaving Steve’s, and he moves over the slightest bit. Steve takes it as an invitation, pushing his hands into his pockets and settling down next to Bucky, careful not to brush their sides together even though he wants to.

“Did the world end already?” Bucky asks, and when Steve looks over Bucky is still watching him, eyes shiny from the white light falling over the both of them, blurring out the grey of them into something bright.

And Steve can’t help but laugh a little to himself. “No, Buck. Not yet.”

“Then where is everyone?”

“Safe,” Steve decides on, shaking his head a little. “Safer than here, at least.”

“Are we…” Bucky pauses, and Steve watches him turn his head, huffing out a small breath of frustration. “What about you?”

It takes Steve a long time to think about that. They’re no longer looking at each other but at the abandoned car in front of them, still flashing its lights—and Steve wonders about that, if Bucky would have waited all night for him, or if he only just managed to catch him…

As it is, Steve doesn’t know how to explain to Bucky that there isn’t much that they can do now. And some part of him, some part that is still small and sickly, is nervous about telling Bucky, because if something like this happened before—before everything, Bucky would’ve been furious that Steve gave up his opportunity to leave for Bucky’s sake.

But Bucky would’ve done the same.

So he takes in a breath. “I was waiting for you,” he says.

In his peripheral he can see Bucky shaking his head. When he turns to look, Bucky is still staring ahead, an inexplicable emotion working its way through his features. He shakes his head again. “You can’t forgive me, Stevie.”

 _But you do. You do and you do and you always will. You’ll always forgive him for something he’s never done, for all the things he has done but didn’t know he was doing_ and—

“It wasn’t your fault,” Steve says, swallowing down the heaviness creeping up his throat. The breeze pushes over them and he bundles a little further into his coat, keeping his eyes on Bucky because he’s all he really wants to see, anyway. “None of it was your fault.”

“But I still did it. All of it,” Bucky says, and his eyebrows move together when he looks down at his lap. It’s heartbreaking, it is. It’s Bucky living with memories of—horrible, horrible things—things that he had no choice in doing.

“Did you…do you want to come back to the house I’m staying in?” Steve asks, because he doesn’t know what to tell him. He doesn’t think he knows how to help him with this. But he’ll try.

Bucky’s still looking down at his lap when he nods. They each stand, and Steve watches Bucky move over to the car to turn it off, pulling the keys into his pocket. He rejoins Steve on the sidewalk and they walk in silence for a long moment. Steve watches the clouds thin above them, trying to keep himself from staring at Bucky.

But Bucky’s the first to break the quiet. “So where did everyone go?” he asks.

“Um. There’s these shelters,” Steve starts. “I’m not sure how it really works, they’re all along the southern hemisphere because that’ll be the furthest from where the asteroids will hit.”

“Asteroids?” Bucky asks, genuine wonder in his voice and when Steve looks over he raises a brow.

Steve laughs to himself. “Yeah, that’s—that’s what’s going to end everything, I guess. Not really though, because Earth will still be here. Apparently the chemical impact will be much worse than anything the asteroids themselves could do. I keep imagining it to be like the dinosaurs. Makes it cooler, I guess.”

“Makes more sense, too,” Bucky agrees, and there’s something lighter in his voice. And that’s funny too, because the lightest he’s sounded is when he’s talking about the end of the world. “So are we not going to a shelter, then?”

Bucky asks it when they arrive back at Adela’s house. Steve lets them in. They both shrug off their coats next to the door, kicking off their boots, and Steve turns on the light in the kitchen and motions for Bucky to join him.

It’s too bright. Bucky squints when he sits down at the table, and he looks a little worse for wear. His shirt is obviously been through a few fights, and Steve can see now that there’s dried blood on the knuckles of his right hand. His eyes are low and purpled underneath, his lips chapped and bitten.

It makes Steve’s heart hurt in a way that he can’t solve.

“No, we…we ran out of time,” he continues the conversation, putting the kettle on the stove. He turns to look at Bucky and shakes his head, it’s a little funny to talk about it like this. It makes it all the more ridiculous—less real. The weight of it has been sitting too heavily in his chest and now it feels like nothing at all. “They closed the shelters, so they wouldn’t let us in even if we showed up.”

And Bucky huffs out a breath from where he’s sitting, sounding a bit like he doesn’t believe him at all. “Not even for Captain America?”

Steve just rolls his eyes and reaches for two mugs in the cabinet. “Between keeping a majority of the population of the planet alive and keeping _me_ alive, I think I know which one they’re going to pick.”

“Steve—” he pauses when Steve hands him the mug with hand painted sunflowers on it, sunny and bright against the faded green of the mug. The steam rises from it and towards Bucky, who pulls his sleeve down to wrap around his hand as he takes it by the handle. And it’s so—it’s such an endearing thing, that Steve loses his train of thought for a long moment until Bucky clears his throat and pulls the mug closer to him. “You shouldn’t die for me, Stevie.”

But Steve shrugs his shoulders, taking a sip from his mug. The tea is too watery and bitter but he ignores it. “Whether I should or shouldn’t isn’t really the question anymore, Buck.”

“Steve—”

“I would, though,” he continues. “I would, every day. I have, every day. I would do it again in a heartbeat. If you gave me a thousand tries to make a different choice, I’d still choose you. Every time.”

Bucky snaps his mouth shut. An angry line appears between his brows but he doesn’t say anything for an impossibly long moment. Steve worries at his bottom lip, not quite ready for when Bucky asks, “Why?”

He breathes out a laugh anyway. “How much do you remember?”

It’s a question Steve asks but it’s not the answer to Bucky’s. He knows that whatever they are—the history that lies between them, all these years, has something to do with it, but that’s not _it_. Why does he do this for Bucky?

And the line on Buck’s forehead disappears, blankness filling in the absent spaces. He goes blank and then he goes confused, maybe even suspicious. Steve should be able to tell. He can’t.

“I don’t know,” Bucky says. “I remember more than I used to. But it’s hard to tell the difference, sometimes, between memories and dreams.”

Steve imagines himself as a dream.

“I know that it’s not going to last much longer,” Steve starts, watching the way Bucky sips gently at his tea, eyes locked on him. “Memories are just memories at this point. I don’t want you to feel any pressure to remember anything, but I would like it if you stayed with me.”

 _To the end of the line_. He swallows down the weight of it, his throat full with the complete and utter heaviness of it.

And Bucky nods absently, looking down into his teacup. When his gaze lifts to meet Steve’s, it’s closed off but not empty. “Yeah, I’ll stay.”

Steve feels his face fall into a smile, weak and a little watery but it’s a smile nonetheless. Bucky doesn’t seem to understand it, or rather he doesn’t have a reaction to it, so Steve forces a few long sips of tea, letting the quiet sit between them for a moment until Bucky asks:

“How long do we have, anyway?”

“’Til Wednesday.”

Bucky nods again. “Okay,” he says. “That’s…”

He trails off, his gaze a little foggy and distant.

“Soon?” Steve offers. “I mean, it’s technically Friday now, so…”

It’s hard to put words around it, even harder to watch the way Bucky blinks slowly, his bottom lip between his teeth. He doesn’t seem to be focused on anything at all, just distant and quiet and Steve wonders if he’s slept recently.

“Did you, um. There’s plenty of bedrooms here, I could show you—“

Bucky’s eyes are back on him and he nods, standing from the table with only the soft sound of the chair sliding across the tiles. Steve joins him, taking both of their cups and placing them in the sink, reaching for the light switch on their way out of the kitchen.

There’s a moment on the stairs, with Bucky right behind him and the dim light hiding all the shadows that shift along the walls, there’s a moment where Steve feels the weight of Bucky’s presence for the first time since they stood on a cliff overlooking the icy peaks of the Alps.

It’s Bucky—in all his forms, despite everything, it’s still Bucky. And he’s here, with Steve, and even though it’s been over seventy years since they’ve been in this same position, they’re here. Now. Time doesn’t really mean anything between the two of them, walking up the stairs.

They don’t say anything when Steve opens the door next to his room, leaving enough space for Bucky to pass through if Bucky wanted to pass through.

Steve doesn’t think he wants Bucky to pass through.

Some bigger, more selfish part of him wants to keep Bucky with him, to not let him out of his sight. It’s childish and insecure, so he forces himself to look Bucky in the eye even though Bucky isn’t returning the favor. The two of them stand in the hallway for forever without speaking.

Bucky eyes the room with little emotion, eventually stepping inside and turning towards Steve again. “Do you have any extra clothes?” he asks, and Steve nods too quickly, glancing down at Bucky’s worn shirt and pants.

“Of course,” Steve says, opening his own door to rummage through his suitcase for an extra pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt.

Bucky accepts them with a small smile and a soft _thank you_.

They blink at each other, time stretching on and on before Bucky finally, gently closes the door.

“Goodnight,” he hears, murmured from the other side, like he didn’t mean to let it out.

Steve smiles.

“Goodnight, Buck.”

*

Steve know he’s not going to fall asleep with Bucky only one room away.

He knows this, but he tries anyway.

One breath in, another out. He counts each breath and he keeps this up until the sound blends in with the sound of snow whipping at the window, no longer gentle and quiet. For a while it’s just the wind and the window, the night falling over him in long, drawn out pieces.

The room feels emptier than it has this whole week, and Steve wonders about that. He thinks maybe his body knows that Bucky is nearby, that the spaces between them feel further apart the closer they are. Steve doesn’t think that makes sense.

He lets out a soft sound, something like a laugh or a cough or a sigh, but it doesn’t matter. Bucky is in the other room and Steve is in this room and he wants to be closer, wants to be close enough to touch because when he really lets his mind drift it always comes back with the asteroids or the cold and freezing all over again.

When it comes down to it, he doesn’t want to think about any of that.

“Steve?” he hears from the door, the sound nearly making him jump. For all his supposed advanced hearing, for all the echoing sounds in the dark, he had no idea that Bucky had even left his room.

(He thinks it might have more to do with the silence of Bucky.)

When he looks over, Bucky is made of shadows, one hand on the door knob, both feet placed outside the room. From what little light merges through the window, Steve can make out the angles of his face, each sharp contour of his cheeks and jaw, the soft lines of his lips. When his head tilts lower he can see Bucky’s eyes, wide and wary in the dark.

“Yeah?” he answers, sitting up. “Did you want to come in?”

Bucky stares at him a little longer before shaking his head. He comes in anyway.

It’s strange, observing him like this. For all intents and purposes, Steve _knows_ that Bucky has been through trauma, he knows that Bucky isn’t and won’t ever be the same person he once was. But it’s one thing to know this, and another to watch Bucky so quiet and conflicted with himself

He comes over to the bed, the light casting strange shapes onto his body. He moves right through them and towards Steve, hovering at the edge of the bed in question.

“You can,” Steve starts, swallowing down the dryness of his throat. “You can lay down if you want.”

He has to wonder if Bucky is struggling with the choice, at not being told what to do. There’s something like anger ringing quietly in the back of Steve’s head, this piece of him that looks at Bucky and not only says _what did they do to you,_ but also _why can’t I take apart everyone who did?_

Steve watches Bucky decide, lingering by the side of his bed in Steve’s clothes, the metal arm is duller in the shadows of the room but still bright.

And isn’t that like Bucky, to give off his own light after all that’s been done. Bucky never did anything but shine on Steve his entire life.

_Life began in a back alley…_

Bucky gets in the bed just as quietly as he came over to Steve’s room. There’s the soft sound of the blanket being pulled back and his weight dipping into the mattress. He lays on his back just as he always used to, chin tilted toward the ceiling, but now there’s the creases in his forehead, the pull of his lips, the faraway gaze.

It should feel wrong, Steve thinks, that Bucky is so different and the same, so distant from who he once was but still remains to be somewhere just beneath the surface. It should feel wrong, it should unnerve him, scare him, even. But—Steve remembers the rush of the train, he remembers cursing the hand that couldn’t reach far enough.

Bucky was dead, and now he’s here and just as beautiful as he’s always been.

Steve could never see him as anything less.

“Are you okay?” he asks, watching Bucky’s eyes close. They stay like that for a long moment before he turns his head to look at Steve.

Here it is: the two of them laying in the dark. And it could be 1940 or 2016, it could be Brooklyn or a snowy little Swedish town. The point is, they’re both still here, and Steve feels this rush of emotion in his chest when Bucky’s eyes are on him, the two of them laying in the dark.

And he wants to reach over, to hold Bucky close just as Bucky used to hold him through the winters full of pneumonia or a cold that he could never shake. But he doesn’t. He keeps his body to himself, feeling heavier than he’s felt in a long time.

But Bucky says, “I’m okay,” and he slides his flesh hand across the mattress over to Steve’s, tangling their fingers together before he tilts his head back towards the ceiling and closes his eyes.

Steve squeezes it once before he slowly drifts off.

*

All Steve knows are endings and beginnings.

He thinks that maybe this makes the end a little more bearable.

*

_Steve doesn’t need as much sleep as he used to._

_See, he has a few theories, and he starts to test them when he feels as though it’s safe enough to do so. It’s when they’re back in camp, taking time off between missions or planning future ones. The funny thing is, it doesn’t really matter when he does it, because it never makes much of a difference, anyway._

_He’s gone four days without sleep before the long hours between two and five in the morning became too boring to sit through._

_So here he is, using his new hearing to listen to the fire pop because the wood they used was still damp. He listens to the slight snore coming from Dugan—the other Commandos breathe quietly in their sleep. He listens to it all, but he can’t take his eyes off of the shadowy outline of Bucky’s back up on the hill behind them._

_It’s been a few days since the full moon, but it still acts like a floodlight, makes everything easier to see in the dark, even with his enhanced vision. And it’s hard to look at Bucky sometimes, knowing what they’d done to him. Bucky tries and he tries, but he can never quite hide the unhappy tilt of his mouth, the split second it takes to get him to smile or laugh at one of their jokes._

_He doesn’t even try to hide the way he slips out of bars to smoke cigarettes in the back alleys, but he always comes back to Steve with a shake of his head, insisting that he’s fine._

_And Steve doesn’t really think he’s lying to him, because they’ve always told each other everything…but sometimes it’s hard to see anything other than the quiet suffering in Bucky’s eyes when he thinks no one is watching, or when he insists on taking the worst times for watching over them at night._

_It’s the first time that Steve wonders if there really are things too horrible to tell each other, or if Bucky just doesn’t want to be that close with Steve anymore._

_See the thing is, at least Steve_ knows _when he’s being ridiculous._

_With a quick glance at the sleeping men around the fire, he slowly extracts himself from camp as quietly as he can, making his way up the hill towards Bucky. There’s no indication that Bucky knows he’s there other than the way he scoots to one side, still staring straight ahead._

_“Hey,” Steve whispers, glancing back at camp before realizing they’re too far away to hear. “How’s it going?”_

_“You should be sleeping, Stevie,” Bucky answers, just as quietly. His eyes are still focused on some point beyond them._

_But see, Steve can’t stop staring at Bucky. “You know, I don’t really need to.”_

_And it’s honest, but Bucky immediately scowls, head nearly whipping to look at Steve right then. There’s something strange in his eyes, something like fear mixed with relief mixed with something Steve can’t quite put his finger on. He’s never seen this look before, and it sends a shiver of an ache right to his stomach._

_“You don’t need to…” Bucky trails off before he shakes his head, turning back to where he was looking before with a sigh. “Look, Cygnus is just rising over the horizon.”_

_Steve offers his wrist because he’s never been good at looking for constellations. Back in Brooklyn his eyesight combined with the light pollution from the city made it nearly impossible, but Bucky’s always had a knack for it, and Steve’s gotten used to the way he grips Steve’s wrist and draws out the constellation in the sky._

_Right now he’s drawing a sort of sideways cross, his fingers a warm and gentle pressure on his wrist, and Steve can see it so he bites down a smile. “Cygnus is the swan, right?”_

_“Yeah,” Bucky says. “I think Jupiter and Saturn are out too, but I’m not sure which is which.”_

_He shifts closer to Steve so that their lines of sight are closer, and Steve looks between the two points of light that Bucky’s using his hand to point to. He feels like that’s them: two points of light with a little dark space between them._

_Steve turns his head towards Bucky, their proximity so that his chin is nearly brushing his shoulder, but Steve just looks down and asks, “Are you okay, Buck?”_

_When he glances up, Bucky’s still looking at the sky, those two points of light, and he doesn’t say anything at first. But then he finally looks at Steve and he’s_ right there _and he says, “Yeah, I’m okay.”_

_It’s not that reassuring._

_There’s a slow smile on his face though, and he nudges his shoulder against Steve’s, leaving it there after a moment. In the moonlight his profile glows like the city lights he remembers so fondly. Two city boys away from the city. Two city boys and they’ll always be like this, shoulder to shoulder, drawing constellations in the sky._

_And Steve knows it down to his soul, he’s never been more sure of anything in his life._

_“Hey,” he says, drawing in a breath and leaning his weight onto Bucky that much more. “Have you ever thought about going somewhere besides New York after this?”_

_There’s a moment of regret when Bucky pulls away to look at him, a frown playing at the corners of his mouth. “What makes you say that?”_

_But Steve shrugs. “You can see the stars better in other places.”_

_“Yeah, and I don’t want to go to those places.”_

_“You don’t mean that, Buck,” Steve says, but he doesn’t really know what he’s saying. Not really, anyway._

_“What are you getting at, punk? You tryin’ to run me out of town so you and Agent Carter can raise your kids without me?” Bucky would be more convincing if he spoke in his normal cadence. As it is, it feels too light for it to be played off as a joke._

_Steve’s starting to think he might not know anything at all._

_“I meant_ us _, dummy. And I didn’t mean to like, suggest we move or something. I meant that we could go somewhere, you know, without the whole war…thing. Go somewhere nice, see the stars.”_

_“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”_

_“I think you’d like it,” Steve says. “Which makes me like it too.”_

_Bucky laughs softly, shaking his head to himself or maybe he doesn’t realize he’s doing it. “You’re like a puppy, you know that?”_

_And he takes Steve’s wrist again, but Steve knows this constellation._

_“Canis major—that’s you, Stevie.”_

_Steve feels some sort of victory at the genuine smile in his voice, so similar to those Brooklyn nights in different bodies. “What does that make you?”_

_Two different stars. “Canis minor,” he says._

_Steve tilts his head back, because that’s not right._

_“No,” he says, “no, where’s Hercules?”_

_And Bucky shakes his head, dropping Steve’s wrist but making up for it by leaning his weight against him again. “Shut up,” he says. “Besides, doesn’t Hercules kill Hydra?”_

_“And your point is?”_

_Bucky laughs lowly to himself. “Sometimes I think Hydra killed me.”_

_Steve inhales a sharp breath, head turning towards Bucky who turns back to him, both of them watching each other for a long moment. And the thing is—Steve knows Bucky can’t be the same as he was before he was captured, but it’s one thing to know this, and another to hear Bucky say it aloud._

_“God—sorry. I don’t want to be morbid—”_

_“No,” Steve interrupts. “You know I wouldn’t…” he trails off, not really knowing what he was going to say. “I want you to be okay, Buck. It kills me every time that you say you’re fine.”_

_Their eyes are locked together, and Bucky breathes in slowly. The distance between them isn’t really distance at all._

_“No one is fine, Stevie,” he says. “Not out here. But I can’t—there’s no time to be anything else.”_

_Steve nods at that, trying to be understanding when all he really wants to do is take Bucky home and tuck him into bed, wrap himself around him and protect him from every bad thing that’s touched him. He thinks about all the times Bucky has been there for him, all the times he’s helped him, and God, why can’t he do the same?_

_How is it that Bucky can be so strong and Steve so…useless? Still, even after the serum._

_“I see those gears turning in that thick head of yours,” Bucky interrupts. “I’m okay, Steve. I promise. And me and you, when this is all over we’ll go somewhere real dark and watch the stars, okay? I’ll show you everything.”_

_Steve nods again, something funny twisting his stomach. The way Bucky looks at him like…like he knows it’s an empty promise but it’s one he’ll make anyway. Steve bites down on his bottom lip, knowing that it’s all he has out here._

_“Okay,” he says. “I’ll hold you to it.”_

_Bucky responds by putting his arms around Steve’s shoulders, tugging him down a little bit until they’re pressed closed together. “Everything’s going to be so good, Stevie. After this, it’s going to be so good.”_

*

And no—

You know he’s not okay when you ask. He’s not okay when he says he’s okay and that’s the joke of it, isn’t it? He never has been. He would suffer before letting you see him struggle. He would do anything to protect you, even if he doesn’t really know that that’s what he’s doing.

But will it ever be okay? That he falls apart to keep you together, that maybe it’s all he’s ever done…

You’ll find a way to blame yourself. You both do.

When it comes down to it you’ll always blame yourselves.

*

Steve wakes slowly and comfortably in the pale shadows of the morning sun, the light falls in through the lace curtains, and the dull shadows sit quietly in the corners of his room. It takes Steve a long, sleepy moment to realize that he’s alone.

He swallows down the desire to panic. Instead he clutches the quilt to his chest and listens to the soft noises coming from the kitchen downstairs. He smiles at the thought of this drafty old house and its similarities to those early mornings in Brooklyn—Steve forced to stay in bed while Bucky went about his morning routine, cooking breakfast for the both of them.

It’s in this moment that Steve’s mind turns back to last night, his thoughts settling down into the weight of Bucky’s hand in his. He thinks about it when he stretches out, absently brushing his hand over Bucky’s side of the bed. He thinks about it when he gets up, when he opens the curtains and pulls on a sweater. It runs through his mind over and over again because Bucky may have these dreamlike memories, but it has to be a sign that he _trusts_ Steve. That he knows that this is it, this is how he wants to spend the last of their days in this world.

Together.

Steve makes sure he’s heard as he descends the staircase, and the sun is breaking through now in earnest, painting the hallway in shades of ice as cold as the winter. He finds that he doesn’t really mind.

He also finds that it’s hard to keep the smile off of his face when he spots Bucky in the kitchen, staring at the toaster in his hands. And—it looks like there’s some type of soup on the stovetop.

Steve doesn’t really know where to begin with this one.

“Did we have a toaster? In New York, I mean,” Bucky asks, turning his head towards Steve and lifting the toaster a little. It warbles the mirror image of the room, Bucky’s metal hand a zig zag in its reflection. He’s wearing one of Steve’s sweaters, it’s a thick cable knit and it’s caramel colored. He hopes it makes Bucky feel warm and soft.

 “We couldn’t afford it,” Steve answers, “but Mr. Smith next door had one. He’d invite us over for breakfast on Saturdays. I think he was just taking pity on us, but it was nice.”

Bucky seems to accept that, putting down the toaster and moving back to the bubbling pot on the stove. “I wanted to make breakfast but all I really remember is oatmeal. You don’t have any oatmeal.”

“So you’re making soup?” Steve asks, raising a brow. He tries to keep his voice light, he doesn’t want Bucky thinking he’s making fun of him, but there is a part of him that’s so tired of this somber energy that’s been following him around. He thinks that maybe he wants to laugh.

Bucky tilts his head to one side, his voice so different from what it was last night. “You’re the one who sleeps with a pink quilt, so I’d say you can’t judge me right now.”

“I think the quilt is sweet,” Steve says, defensive. He’s able to hold a pout until Bucky glances over, he’s stirring the steaming pot on the stove, loose strands falling from his bun and into his face. God, he’s…like the sun. Steve doesn’t know how he lived without him.

Well, whether he was really living or not…

“Besides,” he continues, “I wasn’t judging you. In fact I’ve missed your soup, I’d eat it for every meal every day we have left, if I could.”

Bucky laughs, reaching into one of the cabinets with his metal hand, coming back down with two bowls, pale green and chipped. “See, now I know you’re making things up. The end of the world is not a time for _soup_.”

“What’s it a time for, then?” Steve asks, watching Bucky’s back as he moves around the kitchen. The sleeve of his sweater is caught in the elbow of his left arm, exposing the shiny metal plates of his wrist.

And suddenly it’s the two of them and the seventy years missing between them, the sheer curtains on the window above the sink, the white marble of the counter Adela kept her grocery list on, the empty world around them. It’s the two of them and it’s not what Steve imagined when he was sixteen and worried that Bucky was going to get tired of him. Or when he was eighteen and wondered if he would ever make something out of his poor, sickly life.

But Steve can’t think about it. He can’t look at Bucky and wonder what their younger selves would think of them now, stranded at the end of the world with all this time and torture between them. He can’t do it to himself because it breaks his heart in a hundred ways.

So he sits at the table, aware of Bucky watching him with caution in his eyes. He’s holding two spoons in his right hand, the other rests on the countertop. Steve’s stomach twists with hunger.

“I don’t know,” Bucky admits. “It’s been a while since the last time the world ended.”

Steve laughs a little at that. “So in the meantime…soup?”

“Yeah, soup,” he answers, ladling it into the two bowls and setting one of them in front of Steve. When he looks down, he’s greeted with one of the most familiar sights of his life: watery broth with all the vegetables from their fridge chopped into neat little pieces.

“Thank you, Buck,” he says, waiting while Bucky sits across the table with a bowl of his own.

Bucky just nods, his spoon hits the sides of the bowl with soft little clinks, the sound echoing into the silent kitchen. He tries not to stare but—it’s hard not to. It’s hard to keep his eyes off of the face that he’s been desperate to see since that horrible day on the causeway. All the familiar lines and echoes of the past in front of him. All that he’s been missing.

The best part is, the soup tastes just the same. Warm and salty and not really filling but still absolutely perfect.

“Are you okay?” Bucky asks eventually, after they’ve been eating for a few minutes.

Startled by the question, Steve looks up to see that Bucky’s watching him with the same look he imagines he has on his own face. They’re both worried about the other, isn’t that a familiar thing…

“Yeah,” Steve answers. “Of course.”

Bucky lifts his brows but doesn’t say anything else, going back to eating with the same calm, quiet motions. Steve watches him, suddenly something splintering in his chest at the thought of Bucky taking care of him all over again. He didn’t…he didn’t want to be put in this position again. He wants to be the one that looks after Bucky, for once.

“You don’t have to worry about me, Buck,” he says, and he hates the false energy in his own voice.

“Okay,” Bucky answers pleasantly, glancing up at Steve for just a brief moment.

Steve swallows the desire to defend himself further, knowing that it wouldn’t do much other than make him seem more pathetic than he is. Instead he asks, “Did you want to go to the grocery store after this? We could pick up some oatmeal or…honestly whatever we want.”

And Bucky smiles at him. It’s a strange, shaky sort of thing, like Bucky either doesn’t really want to or that he doesn’t really know how to smile. Either way he says _yes_ and they’re both quiet for the rest of breakfast.

Outside it begins to cloud over.

*

By now the sky is heavy with snow, but it has yet to do anything about it.

Bucky ended up borrowing Steve’s extra jacket. The one he was wearing last night proved to be of little use against the cold, well-worn and ripped in a few places, but they’re close enough in size now that Bucky fits easily in Steve’s navy parka, even if the sleeves go a little past his wrists.

There’s a strange, other-worldly glow where the sun should be, almost as if it’s trying to burn straight through the clouds and reach them on the other side. Here, where the two of them walk side by side across the fresh snow pavement, white black, white grey, white on white and then the two of them: navy shadows pressed shoulder to shoulder.

The streets don’t feel as empty with Bucky’s arm against his.

“I’ve been thinking,” Bucky starts, and Steve smiles to himself because it still doesn’t feel right to make a joke of it yet, but he likes the way Bucky’s comfortable starting the conversation.

“Oh yeah?” he says.

“Yeah,” Bucky answers, and they pass the pub before he continues. “You used to be small—I mean, really small.”

Steve huffs out a breath, leaning a little heavier against Bucky’s shoulder. “Thank for the reminder.”

“You’re welcome,” he says, letting the sound of their boots crunching over the snow fill the space—or lack of space—between them.

Here’s the sound of their boots crunching over the snow, the sun leaking through the clouds, winter coiling around them just the same as it did over seventy years ago. Steve watches Bucky out of the corner of his eye, waiting for words to follow but they don’t come. They walk and walk and Steve frowns down at the snow.

But then: “I just think it’s funny,” Bucky says, “that most of my memories are of you as you used to be.”

And Steve thinks about it, he thinks about the way Bucky says it without even glancing over at him, about the way they share the weight between them. He smiles down at the snow. “Should I be jealous of my former self?”

“Nah,” Bucky answers, sounding the most like himself. “I had a dream about you last night, you know.”

“Big me or little me?” Steve asks, failing to bite down a laugh. It’s a relief, and it’s hilarious, that there’s someone who remembers both sides of him. Who remembers the determination locked in his fists, in the frustrated hand pushing through his hair, the furrow of his brow as he bent over his sketchbook whenever he had a spare moment.

And Bucky laughs too, just a short, chopped thing, but it counts. “Big you,” he says. “I guess it doesn’t matter, but I’m used to nightmares, so…it was nice.”

“Tell me about it?” Steve asks.

He shrugs. “It was weird, we were sitting on a couch and you were playing a record. I think we were trying to remember the name of the song that was playing but we couldn’t figure it out.”

Bucky abruptly stops walking, his gaze still where it was, but somehow lost—gone. Steve hesitates to speak—

“I kept having this dream,” Bucky starts, and his voice sounds far away so Steve doesn’t prompt him to continue when the silence drags on and on.

Bucky lets out a long breath, head leaning back just a little, and his eyes tilt towards the sky. Steve stays by his side, just watching Bucky’s profile and the way the weak sunlight shifts over the muscles in his neck.

“I think I had it every time I was frozen, or—every time they took me out. It’s hard to tell, but I remember it coming back to me over and over again. Maybe the entire time I was under their control…”

Steve frowns a little, shifting his weight between his feet. It’s colder now that they’re standing still. “Do you remember what the dream was?” he asks.

“That’s the thing,” Bucky says. “I _think_ it’s a dream. If it’s not a dream, I don’t know why it always came back to me.”

There’s another long pause. Steve swallows.

“It’s this room, and it looks…so empty but it’s full of light. I remember the light just…mystifying me. And I always felt like I was both inside the room and very far away from it at the same time, but there was never anyone in it. I wanted to know why there wasn’t anyone in it. I think it’s the only real thing that stayed with me through all the mind wipes. I don’t know why it was so important.”

Bucky’s words settle somewhere in the bottom of Steve’s stomach, the memories he’s swallowed down drift back into place. He shifts his weight again and again, forcing his breath to be slow and even, trying to find the right words to say.

But it doesn’t matter, Bucky stares at him for a long moment before nodding, understanding in that way that he always did.

“Come on,” Bucky says. “Oatmeal, remember?”

Steve nods. “Yeah, Buck.”

*

Here’s the dream:

You and Bucky are standing in a grocery store and neither of you can read Swedish.

You’re standing in a grocery store and you find the steel cut oats, and some marshmallows because they’re sweet and soft and you don’t really understand them but you think Bucky should try them before the world ends.

And isn’t that the funny part?

The two of you are standing in a grocery store, arguing over whether or not to leave money at the cash register.

 _They’ll come back when it’s over,_ he says, _they might need it._

You try not to laugh, you’re trying not to cry. You think that maybe the seven dollars you leave behind _will_ help somebody. Sometimes you don’t want to think about anything at all.

But here’s the deal: it’s the end of the world and the clouds are finally clearing on your way home. The watery sun falls over the both of you, grocery bags in hand, cold air on your faces.

And this is a place you want to be, no matter how long it’s going to last.

*


End file.
